1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for manufacturing small magnetic disks comprising a nonmagnetic substrate and a layer of magnetic material applied to the nonmagnetic substrate.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a magnetic disk apparatus used as a file system in an information processing system, various sizes of magnetic disks are used. The size of the magnetic disks used is being increasingly reduced, and recently, small magnetic disks having the size of, for example, 1.8 inch, 1.6 inch, or 1.3 inch have been realized.
The magnetic disks are manufactured, using manufacturing equipment including treating stations. The magnetic disks are carried, handled and transported by disk carriers and robots within the treating stations and between the treating stations. Some of the disk carriers and robots are designed to handle and transport magnetic disks having a particular size. Therefore, in order to manufacture small magnetic disks having the size of, for example, 2.5 to 1.0 inch, it is impossible to use manufacturing equipment designed to manufacture large magnetic disks having the size of, for example, 3.5 to 10 inches, and it is necessary to prepare new manufacturing equipment particularly adapted to manufacturing small magnetic disks. The manufacturing process for the magnetic disks includes many steps, and accordingly, much manufacturing equipment must be prepared for exclusive use of small magnetic disks, while separate manufacturing equipment must still be maintained for manufacturing large magnetic disks. Therefore, a problem arises in that the cost for manufacturing the small magnetic disks becomes high due to the need for special equipment and the time consumed for preparing the new equipment. A further problem is that in some cases, it is difficult to treat and handle small disks.